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For several years now I've been making it a point to visit the Waterford Fair annually, although last year the Fair was cancelled due to flooding, but the town of Waterford, Virginia made up for it a month later with the Art Harvest.

This year was a little rainy, but that wasn't enough to keep me away, and it certainly wasn't a flood, even if it was caused by a hurricane just like in 2015. My first stop was at a woodworker, who has begun making pens this year in addition to his other goods. I bought my 6th fountain pen, and it's my absolute favorite, and my daily writer now; Hawaiian Koa with 24K Gold Nib.

Other stops I always make include buying honey from Loudoun Center Apiaries (1 bottle of their light honey lasts me the entire year!), the antique farm equipment display, the corner store to buy lamb sausage for slow grilling later on, and the beltmaker who I buy a belt from every year; he actually recognizes me now.

I always go through each art and photography gallery, mostly to admire the skills that other artists have that I lack - I so wish I could paint. On this same note, I usually stop in on Katherine Riedel's studio for a moment or two, but this time we actually got to talking about my unexplored desires to learn to paint (specifically watercolors, if you're wondering). Katherine and I spoke for about a half hour, and listening to her talk about art and paint and shape was so interesting I wish I'd been able to turn it into a full interview / spotlight. I did ask if I could film her painting for a bit; the gourds and pumpkins in the video is what she was working on when I dropped by.

Finally, I always visit the wine tasting section (shocker, I know). This is probably one of the best ways to go wine tasting for a beginner, because the 5 or 6 wineries that have booths all give an abbreviated tasting. Most tastings at a winery sample ~6 - 12 wines, while each tasting at the Waterford Fair samples ~4 - 6; that means if you do the full tasting at Waterford of all the wineries, you're sampling ~25 - 30 different wines! For $20 including a souvenir glass, this is an incredible bargain considering the amount of variety (and frankly, sheer amount, especially considering some of the wineries are heavy pourers); a full tasting at just a single one of these wineries including a glass will always run above $20, and here you're getting to try FIVE! If you find a winery you especially like, you can buy bottles right at the tasting, or you can go visit their actual location some other day. I've been to all but two of the wineries at the Fair this year, and with all the vineyards I've visited, I'm pretty well versed in Virginia wine (hint: I generally dislike Virginia wines - actually, I've noticed I generally dislike most American wines). I have three favorite Virginia wineries, and unfortunately none of them display at Waterford - that is just personal preference and nothing against the wineries present at Waterford; most of them are very good and are highly regarded. I even got a little something to bring back from Creek's Edge.

And don't forget to watch the video to see some of this stuff in action.